Suspiria - Review

"When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of its creator"
It would be fair to say that fans of Suspiria may not initially recognise that film in Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino's remake/adaptation in "six acts and an epilogue"
Yes, it is set within a German ballet school which is run by a coven of witches, and the character names are the same, but that is where the similarities end.
Gone is the bold vivid colour palette, replaced with a more muted tone to keep in the 1973 Berlin setting. Instead of Goblin's Italian funk soundtrack, we have Thom Yorke picking up Jonny Greenwood's baton and moving into the film score business. And the iconic death sequences the original are annexed in favour of something else entirely... something that is too deliciously delirious to spoil.
Guadagnino's psychological fever dream is a completely different beast to Dario Argento's original 1977 Giallo horror film.
The story is set within the world of dance and Argento and Guadagnino's two version feel akin to two separate choreographers taking a different approach and adaptation to the text. Both are unique, wonderful pieces of work but also can exist within the same universe.
Similar to how directors will adapt Shakespeare into modern settings to give new historical context and show the universality of the stories, this version is set in Berlin 1976 at a time of a divided city, set for rebirth.
Where Argento's movie was frenetically paced, leaping straight into American Susie Bannion's arrival at the school followed by a horrific murder set piece, Guadagnino opts for the slow burn.
The film takes its time building its two central plots (Susie's meteoric rise to lead protagonist in the company and Dr. Josef Klemperer's search for Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz), the girl Susie replaced) before dovetailing the two together in Acts V and VI which are some of the most spectacularly beautiful, terrifying and insane filmmaking you will see all year... and this is coming from someone who has seen Mandy.
Dakota Johnson, written off by many for starring in the awful 50 Shades films, proves that she is a fantastic actress who will likely follow the same career path as Kristen Stewart after Twilight (which the 50 Shades of Grey books were actually inspired by).
Her performance evokes memories of Natalie Portman in Black Swan as the physicality of the dance is easily matched by her emotional journey as she is pulled deeper and deeper into the conspiracy within the dance school. One that is orchestrated by her teacher and mentor Madame Blanc. Tilda Swinton is the perfect actress for a role like this (and potentially a few others). Her otherwordly appearance and ability to turn from warm to villainous on a dime is used to full effect. Plus the smouldering sexual tension between Swinton and Johnson towards the end is off the charts.
During one private lesson, Blanc tells Susie "There are two things that dance can never be again. Beautiful and cheerful. Today we break the nose of every beautiful thing"
Suspiria is certainly not cheerful and in the world of interpretive dance, there are many that will not like this interpretation of the material. But all art is subjective and while Guadagnino may break the beautiful face of Argento's Giallo classic, from the broken pulpy mess that remains he reaches in and moulds it into something even more beautiful. The same heart reborn with a new visage that is better than the original.

5 stars

Fifty Shades Of Grey - review

For many film reviewers, going to see Fifty Shades Of Grey this weekend was the very epitome of an S&M experience.
Entering into seeing something that could cause them great physical pain with the knowledge that it could also give them great pleasure by giving it a merciless beating afterwards, or even worse... actually enjoying the film!

Fifty Shades Of Grey is sadly not a romantic comedy about a man who falls in love with a girl who works at a DIY store and helps him pick out the right colour to redecorate his red room with.

It is actually based on the unbelievably successful piece of cliterature by E.L. James and sees a young girl become infatuated with a man who wants her to become his "submissive" and enter into a world of pain and pleasure.

Watching the film you would not be surprised to learn that the book started off life as a piece of Twilight fan fiction. The signs are all there; virginal brunette girl who falls for a cold, distant but really, really ridiculously good looking guy with a secret lifestyle. Walks in the Washington State forests. Dialogue that sounds like it was written by a 12 year old girl.

Yes, the book might have been incredibly popular but people were not buying it because it was the next great piece of literature. It wasn't even the next Harry Potter or the next Dan Brown novel. They were buying this for the sex scenes.

So while Kelly Marcel could try and mount a campaign for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar next year for excising all the awful "inner goddess" monologuing and producing something which is not a complete train wreck out of such a poorly written source, unfortunately the terrible dialogue remains. A loud guffaw emitted from the audience when Christian Grey's response to what makes him the way he is was "I'm fifty shades of fucked up!". I have to admit that I rolled my eyes at that line. Is Christian going to put me over his knee and punish me for that too?

However like I said, the audience for this movie are not going for the dialogue and performances they are there for the sex (even to the point that some of the audience in my screening were taking pictures of the scenes on their smartphones!),

So how do the sex scenes come across? Is it worth all the fuss?

No, not really.

After taking ages teasing the audience, when they finally get around to having sex it is nothing more erotic than a scene from 90's soft core series The Red Shoe Diaries. After that two spend what seems like forever working out exactly what sort of punishment and reward goes into the submissive's contract (a situation the actors are surely familiar with as they will be having their multi-picture clauses invoked on Monday when the box office figures are in) it is time to visit the Red Room... and nothing good has ever happened to a woman who goes in there, just ask Laura Palmer.

Despite the genuinely impressive cinematography throughout the whole movie (nothing less should be expected from Seamus McGarvey who has also shot the likes of Atonement and Anna Karenina) the actual sex scenes are full of sex but are never sexy. At one point Dornan handcuffs Johnson from the ceiling like a piece of meat that had me thinking the last time I saw a scene like that it was in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The character of Christian Grey does have a lot of intrigue and potential (sadly not explored here but undoubtably in the sequels as to why he is the way he is, what happened to the previous submissives, etc) and part of me wishes Christian Bale had played the part of Grey as if he were reprising his role of Patrick Bateman because the two characters seem to have a LOT of sinister common ground. The scenes where he talks to Ana while she is asleep, you can imagine him casually saying "I like to dissect girls. Do you know I'm utterly insane?" because he does so many sociopathic and psychopathic behaviours.

Sadly in the end, by Hollywood standards and being unfamiliar with the book, the film finishes on a rather abrupt and slightly laughable conclusion (given the subject matter) but is clearly designed to leave audiences begging for more. After all who hasn't experienced a time when an exciting and racy engagement has been halted by a sudden and unsatisfying climax?

2 stars